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#GuestPost: The World Of New Eden By H. S. Stone

Believe it or not, Beyond New Eden started out as a murder mystery. I was thinking about how we rely so much on forensic evidence like DNA to solve crimes today. What if we couldn’t do that anymore because everyone had the same DNA, the same fingerprints, the same everything? From that sprang my idea of a clone society.

My favorite aspect of creating the world of New Eden was coming up with what happens in a clone’s lifetime. There are lots of different jobs that need to be done to keep a society functioning, but you can’t expect a group of clones to be diverse enough to want to perform all of those functions. There probably won’t be one clone who wants to be a painter and another who wants to be a farmer and yet another who wants to be a scientist.

Given their identical genetics, it’s more likely that all of them will tend to prefer the same career and all of them will not like to do something else. So I had to force each clone to carry out some job required by the society at a certain age. In the end, I decided that the youngest clones had to pay their dues first and do the unpleasant jobs, and as they aged, they got to move into positions that they prefer more.

Synopsis:

Eve 142 has lived her entire life in the domed city of New Eden, home to the only surviving humans after the War. Like all of the inhabitants of New Eden, Eve 142 is a clone. Together with the other clones, dubbed the Adams and the Eves, she leads a safe, predictable existence. However, Eve’s life changes when she causes a tragic accident to befall one of the Adams. As retribution, she and her counterpart, Adam 142, are banished from New Eden. At first, Eve 142 considers their punishment a death sentence because she grew up believing the world outside the dome was uninhabitable. She is wrong. Forced to live in the Wastelands, Eve and Adam discover many new truths about the outside world and, more importantly, the truths about themselves.

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Even before he could read, H.S. Stone wanted to write a book. Fascinated by the stories that seemed to leap from his kindergarten teacher’s books, he went home and wrote his own book, with illustrations and bound by staples. Of course, since he didn’t know how to read or write yet, the book was full of gibberish.

Undaunted, H.S. eventually mastered the ABC’s and continued to write throughout his grade school years, adolescence, and into adulthood. Despite earning a degree and working in a field not related to writing, he continued to pursue his writing passion.

H.S. Stone’s publications include novels aimed at Young Adult and Middle Grade readers as well as several short stories. He currently lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Having never been in direct sunlight before, my first thought upon entering the greenhouse was whether its artificial lights felt the same as the real thing. The heat from rows of electric lamps overhead lapped my exposed skin in waves of warmth, and I imagined that was how the sun really felt.

I had seen pictures of the sun before, of course, and I knew the astronomical facts about the star that the Earth orbited, but I had never seen the glowing yellow orb with my own eyes. None of us had.

The pictures I’d seen were taken before The War. The War, which obliterated the planet and left it uninhabitable except for the domed city named New Eden where I was born and lived my entire life. The War, which wiped out all of mankind except for the hundred and fifty inhabitants of New Eden. The War, which defined the most significant milestone in human history. There was the time before The War and the time after it.

Once my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I saw my destination. I walked toward an apple tree, one of three in the greenhouse. A woman in her mid-twenties inspected the tree’s bark with a handheld instrument, her back turned towards me. The woman was a few years older than me, but she shared the same build, the same amber hair, and, although I couldn’t see them at the moment, the same light brown eyes as I had. If not for the age difference, the people before The War would have thought we were twins.

“Hello, One Thirty-Five,” I called out.

The older woman turned around, put her instrument away, and smiled. “Hi, One Forty-Two.” One Forty-Two was what most of the citizens of New Eden called me, short for Eve 142. “I didn’t hear you. You’re early.”

“I finished classes early today.” I returned her smile in a way that I believed resembled hers.